Systems which automatically distribute customer contacts or calls (generically referred to as “ACD” or transaction processing systems) are often employed in telemarketing environments in which agents stationed at agent telephone sets answer many different types of telephone calls and other types of customer contacts (e.g., VoIP, emails, facsimile, chat room dialog, instant messages, other Internet contacts, etc.) from customers during a work day. As referred to herein, an ACD may be referred to as an automatic call distributor, an automatic contact distributor, or a transaction processing system because it handles a variety of communication media. In other words, the ACD or transaction processing system handles many forms of communication, not just telephone calls in which a potential customer speaks with an agent. The term “ACD” may apply to any type of transaction processing system, and need not apply only to dedicated telemarketing systems or automatic call distributors. In some known ACD's, the agent may receive certain information about the type of customer call (i.e. contact) on a visual display at the agent set when a call or contact is distributed to the agent. An ACD is any such system which performs some of these functions and, for example, may employ a wide variety of architectures including integrated centralized systems, distributed systems, systems using one or more personal computers or servers, etc.
In some embodiments, ACD's may be used to support a number of different vendors in their telemarketing effort, and in such marketing environments, the agent is typically in communication with the customer or potential customer with respect to or on behalf of a particular vendor. The next contact that the agent processes may be on behalf of the same vendor or on behalf of a different vendor. In another embodiment, ACD's may be used exclusively by or on behalf of a single vendor such that all of the contacts processed by the agent involve one particular vendor.
Often, a customer call is distributed to an agent that involves interactive voice dialog. This means a normal two-way verbal exchange. In this situation, an agent is selected based on various criteria, such as specialized knowledge concerning the product or service in which the customer is interested. The agent may also be selected to receive the incoming call based on his or her verbal skills and conversational abilities. U.S. Pat. No. 6,222,919 B1 relates to agent skills based on product knowledge or skills pertinent to the subject matter of the voice transaction, and is owned by the assignee of the present invention, and is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
An ACD, however, may also distribute a non-voice dialog contact or call to the agent. This does not involve direct two-way speech between the agent and the customer or caller. Non-voice dialog communication may be, for example, emails, facsimile, chat room dialog, instant messaging, Internet, etc. and the like. This is becoming more common as Internet traffic and electronic sales transactions increase.
An agent station or agent computer may be operatively coupled to the ACD, often through a basic line rate interface (BRI), which handles the voice channel. If the interface fails or the line connecting the ACD to the agent station malfunctions, the telephone call may be lost. It is desirable to have multiple redundant systems or circuits that permit the ACD to route a telephone call to the agent station over alternate lines using different communication formats. Although some known ACD's provide multiple lines to the agent station, such lines are of the same format, meaning that the multiple lines, for example, are all BRI type communication lines or are all local area network type lines of the same type and protocol. A need exists for an agent station to handle a plurality of different communication formats to increase redundancy and flexibility.